Theme: Sustainability, Innovation and Design

Keynote: Alistair Fuad-Luke, author of The Eco-design Handbook

The Design PhD Conference is a collaborative event between ImaginationLancaster at Lancaster University and the School of Design’s Centre for Design Research at Northumbria University. The conference offers an opportunity for PhD students, Masters students, recent graduates and businesses to meet, exchange knowledge and ideas, and learn about the latest developments in design thinking, methods and research projects.

ImaginationLancaster is a creative research lab at Lancaster University that investigates emerging issues, technologies and practices to advance knowledge and develop solutions that contribute to the common good. We offer a PhD programme and MA courses in Design: Management and Policy and Sustainability, Innovation and Design. Both courses prepare students for roles in the fast changing, multifaceted and interdisciplinary world of design in modern society.

The School of Design in Northumbria University, with more than 1200 students and almost 100 staff, has an international reputation for innovation and real world creativity. Northumbria University’s international reputation in practice-based design education and its links to alumni such as Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, complements the internationally recognised practice-based design research emphasis of Imagination

Conference Theme:
Sustainability, Innovation and Design
This year the PhD conference will be a forum for new ideas and new directions in design research related to the complex interrelationships between innovation, sustainability and design.

The changing nature of our activities - reflecting changes in society, technology, the environment and business - demands the development of new creative directions, new kinds of material culture, services, and organisations, and new kinds of designers and creative professionals.

PhD Poster submission
The conference will invite 7 PhD students to submit an A2 poster representing the key elements of their doctoral research in relation to the conference theme: “Sustainability, Innovation and Design”. The poster must include the following:

Name
Affiliation
E-mail contact information
Title of the PhD thesis
Posters should be sent in PDF format to imagination@lancaster.ac.uk by the 30th of March. The notification of poster acceptance will be on the 16th of April 2009
If your poster is accepted for inclusion in the Conference Poster Exhibition, you are asked to mail a high quality print of your poster (rolled in a Tube container, not folded) to Conference Coordinator Ms. Nicola Sarjent – to be included in the exhibition, posters must arrive by Wednesday June 10th.

Nicola Sarjent
ImaginationLancaster
The Roundhouse
Lancaster University
Bailrigg, Lancaster
LA1 4YW, UK

Contact:
Daniela Sangiorgi, PhD
Imagination@Lancaster
Lancaster University

tel 0044 (0)1524 594527
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